


What I Never Did Is Done

by angeloncewas



Series: a divine gift or curse [2]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Introspection, Memories, Prison, Traumatized Tommyinnit (Video Blogging RPF), Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), no beta we die like, well youll see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:48:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29788728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeloncewas/pseuds/angeloncewas
Summary: It was never going to be anyone but Dream, was it?-Tommy’s always known this day would come, just not quite like this.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s), Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: a divine gift or curse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195631
Comments: 4
Kudos: 105





	What I Never Did Is Done

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my disclaimer: I don't know what getting beat to death is like and I don't want to research it. I tried my best.

You know how the story goes.

There are two heroes and a villain, because it’s better that way. Because it means that the good guys have love and friendship and value, and the bad guy has to be all alone.

(What do you mean the monster loves a man? That can’t be right.)

There’s many battles. The heroes often lose. They’re split apart and sewn back together. They’re beaten down until it seems like they’ll never get up again.

They do anyway, and it’s triumphant. It’s the most satisfying of victories.

It doesn’t _feel_ like victory when Dream punches Tommy in the face.

It feels like raised white knuckles, bruising along his cheekbone. His skin is fragile, he knows; if the endless hours in Pogtopia taught him anything it’s that raw potatoes are not a sustainable diet.

(He might’ve died of malnutrition, if not for, well-)

Tommy’s talking. He’s always talking.

It’s been about claustrophobia. A piston failure in a place forever-frozen. It’s been about exile. The burn of lava, inches away. It’s been about the way Dream is a liar, because that’s all he’s ever been.

When no one came to Tommy’s party and he felt like a little kid again. When Dream called them friends and lit a match in the darkness to destroy Tommy’s last shred of hope.

(When he said it was never Tommy’s time to die.)

Dream’s talking too this time.

They’re talking about Schlatt. Schlatt is gone. His grave rests on land he never cared about, his heart is caught in Big Q’s teeth. Tommy has seen his corpse. Tommy has seen his lifeless body and Dream suggests he speak to the man who never even became a ghost.

He can’t. Schlatt’s dead. Tommy is alive.

The pieces don’t click together right away. In that hallway, Dream had gone after Tubbo. Tubbo was the expendable one.

Tommy’s life is his bargaining chip. Dream _needs_ him.

(A person can’t be the bad guy if there’s no good to measure him against.)

Tommy’s head clicks against the wall as he’s pushed back, his shoulder twisting unnaturally. He can hear his ankle crack as Dream steps forward.

This isn’t a fight, it’s the pit all over again.

Somewhere, Wilbur is urging him on, but potatoes are not a sustainable diet and he’s never been good in small spaces.

Dream kicks him in the ribs and that’s what cements it. He can’t breathe then, his chest aching as he gasps, bone stabbing into his lungs. All he can see through the blurry spots in his vision is the memory of Dream’s skull split open under his axe. The gasps of a crowd behind him. The cool press of blackstone.

(“The only universal language is violence,” Technoblade tells a Tommy who still cares. Tubbo has raw burns that are going to scar and the bad guy is wearing Wilbur’s face and a smug expression and none of that is anything, anymore.)

Tommy’s always known this day would come, just not quite like this. He’s never actually wanted to _die like a hero,_ contrary to what people believe.

This isn’t even that, is it?

There is no light at the end of the tunnel. 

He bites back a strangled sob. Heroes aren’t this pathetic.

(He never got to read the myths. He doesn’t know anything about Theseus.)

What had Ghostbur said, about death? A long path you walk until the darkness overtakes you and you never get to speak to the people you love, ever again.

Tommy doesn’t regret, not really, but he does feel _something._ Emotions someone more eloquent than him could put words to.

He wants to tell Niki that he’s sorry; he knows what it’s like to be looking for someone to blame. He wants to thank Ranboo; the sheer possibility of a message delivered to exile was the thinnest of lifelines.

He wants to remind Tubbo that no one actually needs a sidekick. That he needs to be careful, thinking in terms of games, because sometimes the risk isn’t worth the reward it’ll reap.

(This doesn’t have to be the end of the match. Tommy is not a king.)

Dream’s hands are on him and he shudders, something cold and wet against his neck. It might be blood, or the crying obsidian, or some water, or Dream’s breath, panting from the effort of the impact against Tommy’s body. He has no idea. He wants Dream to leave him alone.

His bones are broken. His spirit is broken.

It’s fine. It’s just like exile.

It’s like exile and there’s Wilbur. Eyes dark and only half-corporeal. They’re lads on tour going nowhere. They’re like brothers separated by fate.

Tommy’s the right-hand man to a goner and so he has to go too. Maybe that’s how the story goes. Maybe it’s not about anything other than two not-heroes.

(Love doesn’t make a person good.)

His body is failing. Nothing spry in his graceless slump, nothing in him able to do anything other than watch himself die. He shuts his eyes. The last thing he sees will not be Dream.

Wilbur reaches out a hand and Tommy remembers a time when he wore a revolution’s uniform and still believed in the shit people said.

Going with his gut had killed him then, too. At least someone had been proud of him afterward.

“-y Wi-” Tommy tries to speak, tries to reach out, but it comes out as a gurgle and he chokes on whatever’s left in his throat. He distantly wonders if Sam will have to bury him on the prison grounds, or if he can be laid to rest on the jagged cliff next to the hole that was L’manberg.

(He likes the idea of spending eternity next to his leader, in a place Dream always hated.)

You know how the story goes, even if you want to believe otherwise.

This isn’t a fairytale. There is no happily ever after. Heroes crash and burn and lay in ruin. They turn back into boys. They fall to men who know what they’re doing, because not once since the very first war has any of this ever been fair.

Tommy slips unconscious with Dream’s hands on his skin - bruised, red-streaked, blue-tinted, carving out his heart to claim as a spoil of victory - and he never wakes up again.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what to put here. I am emotionally devastated. I immediately started writing this and almost missed a class because of it.
> 
> (Check out my Tumblr - I almost wrote a bit of a different ending, but I asked and they said full angst)


End file.
